Games in High School?

Joe Griego of Bishop Union High School, CA asks: "I'm the Director of I.T. for a small school district, and we've implemented a 'Game Night' for our kids. We open the lab once or twice a month, and let the kids sign up for the lab computers (we have 34 of them), and play LAN games until the wee hours. It's a lot of fun for the kids, and I enjoy seeing them use the computers for recreation, as opposed to purely academic purposes. However, my question would be - do other high schools even do this?" Judging by the post-Columbine reactions from the government, parent's groups, school systems, and the media, if a school is doing this, it's probably on the QT. Personally, I think this is a great idea, it keeps kids off of the streets and their parents know where they are. What do you think?

"I'd like to know what sorts of games would be best for this activity? We play Age of Empires II, Starcraft/Broodwar, and MechWarrior IV. I would have liked to include first person shooters (for the gameplay), but I'm limited by parental concerns, and perceptions in the community. As a school administrator and parent, I understand these concerns in a way the kids perhaps do not.

Are there other games that would be suitable for a school sponsored event? I'd love to hear about experiences at other schools."

Comments

computer capabilities

[Jucius Maximus]

How many schools actually have computers that are good enough to play Unreal Tourney or Age of Empires?

Stragedy Games...

[DigiWood]

I believe that stragedy games would be the most accepted all around. As a parent I think that some of the more violent first person shooter type games should be limited to the home and not at a school sanctioned game night.

Re:Civilization III

[TweeKinDaBahx]

Too bad it isn't multiplayer.

Inappropriate

[curunir]

Are there other games that would be suitable for a school sponsored event?

Ummm...chess, go, basketball, baseball (need I go on?)

Given the propensity for computer games to become addictive, it's kinda inappropriate for schools to encourage this kind of thing.

Re:Inappropriate

[unicron]

Yes, but maybe they're not into sports. Maybe the school should actually make an effort to cater to what they like instead of telling them what group activities the school feels they should do.

Your's is the same mentality that led to Columbine. We a have a generation of educated, talented children that are being told if they can't dunk or throw and 80 yard pass they aren't worth shit in high school. The people that will one day run everything are the nerds and geeks of high schools today, and the star high school athletes will be the guy installing my pool or re-shingling my roof in 10 years.

I for one, harbor a deep hatred towards the way schools treat atheletes vs. the way they treat scholars. When I was in high school, I was using a 15 year old math book and then went to assemblies where all the cheerleaders had new uniforms. The chemistry equipment was so old that the reminents of 1000 past experiments were stuck to beakers, leading to some rather bad, unforseen chemical reactions. But what do you know? They just installed new tennis courts and an olympic swimming pool..good for them.

Re:Inappropriate

[Lord Omlette]

"The people that will one day run everything are the nerds and geeks of high schools today, and the star high school athletes will be the guy installing my pool or re-shingling my roof in 10 years."

Arrogance and ignorance go hand in hand.

Re:Inappropriate

[codexus]

So go and chess aren't addictive games? Funny, cause some people spend their life playing them.

All games are addictive. "Having fun" is addictive. Should everything that is addictive be considered bad? What would be left? Even work is addictive to some people.

Re:Inappropriate

[curunir]

Baseball and Basketball:
1) Exercise. Believe it or not, people are healthier when they exercise. People who exercise regularly have lower incidences of more diseases than I care to enumerate here.
2) The self confidence gained by being in shape. All the geeks on /. who complain about never getting laid probably never exercised in high school.

Chess and Go:
1) These are well researched games that have stood the test of time. Computer games only last until the next 'it game' comes out. By learning to play chess or go, you learn a skill that you'll have the rest of your life. Also, once you reach a certain skill level, you need to start researching documented theory on the game. For example, there are entire books that are devoted to a single chess opening.
2) Ever known anyone to get carpal tunnel from playing chess?

Re:Inappropriate

[ziggles]

Although you do have a good point, I think you're asking for too much. Most high schools don't just give the sports teams a bunch of money, the team members have to do fundraising to get the money to buy new things. Why should the nerds and geeks get the money handed to them while the jocks and cheerleaders have to work for it?

Oh, and the star athletes are usually the ones with charisma and they'll probably end up being that boss everyone has that has no idea about anything related to the job but still has control over you, the educated, talented "nerd."

Re:Inappropriate

[tgibbs]

Ummm...chess, go, basketball, baseball (need I go on?) Given the propensity for computer games to become addictive, it's kinda inappropriate for schools to encourage this kind of thing.

An interesting complaint, given that all the activities you recommend are played compulsively (addictive behavior) by some students. And of course, the physical games like baseball and basketball are occasionally associated with disabling (and rarely, fatal) injuries, not to mention actual violence, either between players and spectators.

But of course, these are all traditional entertainments, so people blithely ignore the risks and injuries, and presume that these activities are beneficial overall, even though if some people get hurt, or indulge in athletics to the detriment of their studies. Violence is rare with chess, of course, but it also just as sedentary as computer games.

On the other hand, if something like a computer game is merely popular, it gets characterized as "addictive." And while no school would ever consider eliminating football if a player throws a punch during a game or if spectators get in a brawl afterwards, the slightest hint of any kind of a problem would doubtless lead to widespread demands for the elimination of computer gaming.

sounds like a good idea.

[Phoenix]

When you consider that these kids are going to do this anyway, it's better IMHO to have them do this in a social setting where they are actually talking to each other face to face in the lab between sets.

You can develop good social skills when you get to talk face to face over the pizza and trade "How did you do that" stories.

And if you are really worried about the blood and gore, use the paintball simulators...a FPS where no one gets hurt, or the Nerf Game based on the Unreal engine.

If they sit at home and play these games, there is very little interaction, but in a lan party, it's more akin to a RPG session where at the seventh inning stretch you can talk

My highschool

[netdemonboberb]

When I was in highschool, we used to play games during free periods and after school on the network and we had a lot of fun. Eventually, they started banning games on school computers because they felt the computers should be used for academic reasons and didn't like having games installed. I feel, that in moderation, gaming should be allowed at school as long as its at a reasonable time.

Look at it this way: If you allow gaming once in a while, they won't view your rules as hardball. Even students need some time to unwind, and (at least back when I was a highschool student) the only place you could play multiplayer networked games was in school because that was the only place the connection was good enough.

I don't see how it can hurt. You aren't running a prison camp ;-)

Games and more games.

[Christopher Thomas]

RTS games like Starcraft, Total Annihilation, and so forth are always popular, and shouldn't raise too much concern with parents. As for choosing the games themselves, why not just let the students vote on it? Buy a new game every Christmas for the lab, either with school funds or by "game-lab dues" paid by the students.

Simulation games will be moderately popular too, but multi-player games are usually nicer.

I actually think that adding a few select FPSs (like Tribes) that emphasize wouldn't be a bad idea, but I agree that that probably wouldn't fly too well with the parents.

As a third option, you can load SDL on all of the programming course machines and encourate the students to write their own game(s). This wouldn't replace store-bought games, but would be a neat side project that the students would be enthusiastic about and would learn a lot from. I know I had a lot of fun doing this in my high school days (wrote a Tetris clone and a version of Battleship that worked multi-player by using files in a shared directory to communicate).

"Teamwork".

[Christopher Thomas]

I actually think that adding a few select FPSs (like Tribes) that emphasize teamwork wouldn't be a bad idea

Figures I'd screw up the one time I decide not to preview :).

kids off the streets

[mblase]

Personally, I think this is a great idea, it keeps kids off of the streets and their parents know where they are. What do you think?

Here in Peoria, IL, we had a dance club for teens called Revelations -- up until last year. The name isn't suggestive; the owners were Christians and their motive in providing the club was exactly that. Dancing, peers, and no alcohol even available. But the community had concerns about adults being allowed in and dancing with teens, as well as the subtle nuances of curfew violations for different age brackets.

Eventually the place closed, although this year a different group of Christians -- teenagers, this time -- organized a replacement called Club Saturn. It takes place in a building on the riverfront intended for private group meetings once a month, charges admission to cover the cost of renting the place, and has plenty of chaperones on duty to make sure the dancing isn't too lewd and that nothing unconscionable happens on location. Curfews are enforced.

Nevertheless, the city had a bone to pick with them, too -- this time about the money issue. It seems to be cleared up, at least for now, and Club Saturn continues.

However, it makes me wonder if there's a general stigma about teens in this city having any kind of publicly-advertised party. I'm not even sure it's parents of the kids involved that are concerned; it's probably parents and adults without interested kids who make the noise. Then again, that's just the way people are.

My point here is that if you want to have a LAN-party club at a high school, you'll probably have to observe a few rules:

• No "until the wee hours" business, not even on Fridays when there's no homework to worry about. You'll almost certainly have to observe curfews where teenagers are concerned.

• Pick any games you like, bloody or otherwise -- as long as they're not rated M-17. Turn on the "no gore" controls for the sake of the parents. Advertise that you're doing this.

• Encourage the kids to form a club for this sort of thing, and hand management and promotion of it over to them next year if it's a hit. Let them nominate games they'd like to play. If they can bring their own copies of the game, so much the better. You'll have per-copy licensing issues, obviously, and you'll have a tough time explaining twenty $50-copies of Civ III to the school board.

• Free pizza and pop. Duh.

• Allow and even encourage parents to drop by and see what games are being played. All the posters and reassurances in the world won't substitute for letting parents see what's going on themselves. And how could the kids object? They'll be engrossed in the screen all the time, anyways. Make this a policy for every meeting, student-run or not.

• Keep a sign-in sheet for kids, and require student IDs to be shown (for proof, and so that kids don't bring random friends to school labs). Police the game room and keep "trouble" students from coming back.

• Don't forget to set things up so you can wipe the computers clean afterwards and reinstall a Ghost of all the software when you're done. (Hopefully the lab does this anyways.) Do not, ever, trust those kids not to put sneaky crap on the machines.

The best way to avoid any "Columbine" concerns is to keep it open to parents, monitored by adults, and free of profanity and virtual blood. You'll probably still catch flak, but at least you'll be able to deflect it.

Re:In a word...

[Anonymous Coward]

If the school has sufficient funds for computers of this calliber, then perhaps it has spent funds poorly. Give the teachers a raise. Learning typing, word processors, spreadsheets, or programming requires far less capable computers.

Good computers are just greater incentive to misuse the resource.

Re:When I was in HS

[User 956]

In Elementary School, we played Wolfenstein 3D, Nibbles, Gorillas, Oregon Trail, Number Munchers, Carmen Sandiego and a whole bunch of pirated Apple II games in various classes.

Wolfenstein 3D? Wow, you're pretty young. In elementary school, all we had were Apple IIe's with Oregon trail.

Parents weren't upset about the guns in that game then, but I guess guns in videogames weren't so much of a media ratings-booster back then either.

Licenses?

[BWS]

do you have liceneses for all the games? or ensure that the students bring them? otherwise you're up a shit creek (sp?)

we did this at my high school my first two years

[madmancarman]

My first two years of teaching, we had a group of kids who loved Quake, Quake II (especially Action Quake), and Half-Life (especially with the Opposing Forces add-on and, to a lesser degree, Counter-Strike). My first year (1998-1999), we let them play in our Writing & Research Center, which is a general-purpose computer lab with MS Office and internet access on about 20 P/166's and 5 P/233's at the time. Needless to say, Quake II only ran well on the 233's, so the kids would try to get there quickly after school to snag a good computer. I used to play them from time to time, and even though I can hold my own at fps's, they loved it when they "0wn3d" the teacher. They even pooled money together to buy a legit copy of Quake II to run as a server (because I wouldn't let them run pirated software on our computers - they brought in their own legit licenses). It was a great way for kids who were otherwise social rejects to get together and have a good time.

After Columbine in April 1999 (I think), we quietly put a stop to the games for the rest of the school year, and the kids were surprisingly understanding. They really didn't protest much, and a couple of them really agreed with us putting a hold on it, because a number of these guys fit the Trenchcoat Mafia profile, if you know what I mean.

That May, we passed a $40M bond issue and immediately upgraded that computer lab to 40 Dell P3/450's running NT with 128 megs of ram. Of course, we didn't get the machines until June, but it was a pretty high priority to the district to get that lab up and running so they could show it off to the taxpayers (smart idea). Instead of hiring some consultants to come in and set up the lab, and instead of doing everything with my dad (who's the building tech coordinator), we contacted these kids over the summer and told them the machines were in. About five of them showed up at nine in the morning (which is a serious accomplishment for any male high school geek in the summer) and spent the next two days setting up machines, throwing away packaging, illegally dumping cardboard in nearby recycling containers... willing to work their asses off because they knew, when the lab was set up, they were going to have an unbelieveable LAN party on machines that were (at the time) much better than anything they had seen before. And we did, and it was great.

What we (my dad and I) realized is that not only can high school students have incredible technical abilities (which we already knew), but many of them are willing to bust ass for the benefit of the school if they have some sort of ownership in the situation. Our school's tech support is largely done by students from my tech classes during periods when they'd normally have study hall, and not only do we save unbelievable amounts of money (we have over 600 PC's running the whole variety of Windows - our tech support issues are constant and almost overwhelming), but the kids who are doing the work are learning skills they can actually use at home and quite possibly in a job some day.

So, to get back to the original question - I would recommend making sure that if you let these kids play games, get some work out of them in return! The best way to justify letting them play games is to tell your critics, "Hey, I'm letting these kids play Unreal Tournament because they spent the last week fixing machines and installing software for us, and that saved the district time and money." If you play it off as a reward, you can do a lot for those kids (our principal at the time bought a new motherboard for the kid who programmed our attendance system) and few people will complain. Also, always get the blessing of your principal before you do anything, and you might want to consider having another teacher or even a parent chaperone around so you don't get accused of being a pedophile trying to keep young boys at the high school until the wee hours of the evening.

Incidentally, we tried to put together a Quake II tournament in our high school two years ago where the kids would have to pay a couple bucks, and half the money would go to the winner while the other half would be used to purchase new equipment, but we couldn't get enough kids that were willing to put up the money (like $5), and a couple higher-ups balked at the idea of students participating in a "deathmatch" tournament. So, it didn't happen, but I bet I could have pulled off a StarCraft tournament this year if I'd had time.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi

Get parents involved.

[Bodrius]

Make sure the parents are not only allowed to come in anytime they want to see what the kids are doing, but that they can sit down and play with their kids if they want to.

It may not be very "cool" for some of the kids, but it will get the parents on the good side ("quality time") and they will almost never really do it anyway.

And get games that parents would be hard-pressed to disapprove.

Civilization and Alpha Centauri have already been recommended, but that cannot be emphasized enough. Show any sane parent the Civilopedia and he will fall in love with the game.

Chess is an obvious necessity. Partly because of legitimacy, and partly because if you get some kids interested into chess you will have them competing over the network and improving in no time. Hard to disapprove of that.

Playing chess (or Go) with the adults may prove to be an event that involves the parents and actually doesn't suck for those involved (there would be some Freudian satisfaction in defeating your parent at chess, and those adults willing to play chess with their kids will probably be respectable opponents).

SimCity is also a great game to encourage. Almost any good Sim-style game is a good idea, even Tropico (as a Latin American, I find it hilarious). RailRoad Tycoon is a very good Sim-business game with a historical background...

Sports games are usually accepted by parents even if they don't understand or encourage strategic games, simply because they are an extension of real-life games they approve. It's also a good way to get kids unfamiliar with computers to look at them without the geeky label.

The idea is to get parent support for the stuff the parents don't understand, through stuff they do understand.

An exmaple of things they don't understand but would be a good idea:

Install level-editors/scripters/whatever for all the games you can find them for.
If you let the kids play with Mods or whatever, you can get some of them familiarized with programming, 3D modelling, graphic design, or all of them combined. This is a good thing.

Gaming is part of the Curriculum

[mrbuonomo]

I teach computer technology in a HS. The students work hard to learn all about computer hardware, software, OSes, and networking equipment. Before each vacation an dthe last week of the year we "TEST THE NETWORK" with Quake, Quake II and Unreal Tournament.

I would really like to get an afterschool program going, the kids love it and it keeps them out of trouble.

Not to mention the incentive it creates to fix network or hardware problems, when they occur the day before "testing".

It helps some of the kids who never socialize to feel more in their element. As long as parents and community members realize it is just a game and it is all in fun, there should be no issues..